I'll admit it: On Sunday morning, I'll have a hangover. Not because of excessive drinking, though. (There are only so many Mint Juleps you can drink before your breath smells like a tube of Aquafresh.) But because I laughed so hard during Saturday night's installment of Saturday Night Live, there's little chance I don't wake up fielding a brutal stomachache.
But host Zach Galifianakis gave me little choice. Back at SNL for a third time, the host gave us so much, we're left wondering how The Hangover Part II could have gone so wrong. But let's rewind to the episode at hand!
After a Fox &amp; Friends parody that was a bit too familiar to SNL fans — each one is becoming less distinguishable from the last — we finally got to the moment we've been looking forward to this entire week: Galifianakis' monologue, which he had already perfected his first two times on the series. Starting off the show with the same oddball deadpan we fell in love with in Live From the Purple Onion, Galifiankis waxed poetic about charades ("My wife and I once played charades with a couple who was deaf. They were amazing.") and stumping Google ("I once Googled, 'How many candles does Dave Navarro own?' Fourteen thousand."). The opening was so Raven, the perfect antidote to Season 38's subpar monologues, even if it was a bit less daring than a bearded man wearing an Annie costume.
Still, Galifianakis didn't stay out of costume for long, donning a dragon suit for the next sketch, "Game of Game of Thrones." Tapping into the obsessive fan culture for the HBO series (admit it, we're all guilty), the sketch featured the comedian as an enthusiast who knows everything about Westeros, but nothing about the real world. (Among the questions he got in the game show-centric sketch: What is the capital of Wisconsin?) Bonus points go to the sketch for featuring the under-appreciated Aidy Bryant and Game of Thrones star himself, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who popped by long enough to prove Galifianakis' ignorance about the Supreme Court.
And bonus points go to SNL's Match.com commerical parody for utilizing the also under-appreciated Kate McKinnon as an unlucky-in-love Martha Stewart. Her impression might not have been as on point as her others (hello Ellen DeGeneres!), but who didn't get a giggle hearing Stewart express appreciation for "tiered macaroons" and "the simple elegance of a good bang"? (Though why SNL didn't choose this prime spot to feature its hilarious New Balance add — advertising the shoe brand "worn by chubby white guys" — is beyond me.)
The episode's celebrity cameos didn't end with Coster-Waldau. Galifianakis' Hangover c0-stars Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms showed up for a severely under-rehearsed Jennifer Aniston look-alike sketch, which derived most of its humor from seeing the stars in blonde wigs. It was all worth it, though, to see that Taran Killam can add Rachel Green to his list of celebrity impressions.
Of course, Killam was easily upstaged by Bill Hader, who stopped by Weekend Update as James Carville to talk gun control legislation, his ghost grandma, and drinking sweet tea in Louisiana with Alligator Joe (who's called that "because he's an alligator"). So many of Hader's one-liners were so delicious ("I have nothing against guns. And I'm not just saying that because I look like a bullet"), I'd prefer them any day over a giant bowl of gumbo. Or, at least, I'd prefer them over Fred Armisen's Google Glasses-plagued tech correspondent and Cecily Strong's increasingly overplayed (and never funny) Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party.
It wasn't long until Galifianakis was back in a costume, this time as a racist, sexist, and homophobic M&amp;M's World employee who expressed his distaste for his diverse staff "often through song." It's easy to imagine the sketch — which featured a good number of jokes that pushed racial boundaries — was a divisive one, but dammit if Galifianakis in a beret didn't make me chuckle.
What didn't make me chuckle initially was "Darrell's House," a bit about a deluded man marking a low-grade talk show in his home. All the elements were there — Galifianakis' patented absurdity, Jon Hamm references — but teasing a Hamm cameo and not delivering was like teasing a delicious Honey Baked Ham and handing us a piece of bologna. But, of course, the bit more than paid off when we watched "Darrell's House" later in the episode as it was meant to be seen, featuring the Mad Men star himself. And, as it turns out, waiting 20 minutes for the joke to pay off was well worth it.
As was Galifianakis' stint on SNL. Is anyone else going to be hurting tomorrow?
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I don't know why this is, but episodes that focus less on the Doctor always end up being so good, don't they? And I think that is exactly what Saturday night's new episode of Doctor Who — titled "The Crimson Horror" — was: quite good. Some people might fight me on that one, but playful, old timey humor is exactly the sort of thing needed to break the tension. Jenny, Strax (lord I love me some Strax), and Madame Vastra are back, and they've headed to the north ("Lots of places have a North!") to Yorkshire (home to my favorite tea in the universe, Yorkshire Gold) to solve the mystery of Winifred Gillyflower (the incomparable Diana Rigg), her blind daughter Ada (played by Rigg's real-life daughter Rachael Stirling), and the creepy, industrial town of Sweetville. with its terrifying red disease and a population of people who never seem to leave.
Before we do anything though — this episode was a really proper penny-dreadful (think Sweeney Todd, or, you know, Google the term), and it was such a wonderful format for a Who story. I loved the use of the creepy morgue man and his ominous announcement of "The Crimson Horror." Well done, Moffat &amp; Co: a right romp — which is exactly what you need in at this point in the story (some may call the episode a bit of a "filler," which I suppose I agree with), even if it is a bit aggravating as a viewer. Penned by Mark Gatniss, I think that if this story had happened earlier in the season, fans would've appreciated it more. Between "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS" and next week's upcoming Neil Gaiman-penned, Cybermen-returning episode, though? Not so much. Plus, there really is no excuse for Gillyflower's painfully pathetic exit: death by massive fall is no way to off Diana Rigg, my friends.
The adventures of the Doctor and his friends were quite a lark overall. The perma-comical trio of Strax, Vastra, and Jenny worked wonders to bring a lightness to what has been a fairly serious season thus far. And how about that Jenny, eh?! Kicking ass and taking names, she was! There was also that Jenny-Doctor kiss, too. Talk about unexpected. Is it just me or was the Doctor coming across as fairly randy (for him) in this episode? Considering the Doctor's sexuality setting generally hovers somewhere on the scale between "a puppy" and "an inanimate object," it felt off the charts tonight.
Regardless, Sweetville is a curious sort, isn't it? Run by a religious zealot convinced the apocalypse is soon upon us (...interesting idea to introduce so close to the finale, even if it was also accurate to the time), and thoroughly convinced through madness or otherwise that the only way the cream of the crop can rise to the surface is if they move to Sweetville and live the life of moral exaltation. Turpitude is not allowed: only supermodels with the certainty of right and wrong entrenched in their hearts. But apparently being dipped into a diluted form of an ancient venom is allowed.
And because of that venon — a fatal sort that Madame Vastra is quite familiar with; it nearly wiped out her entire species — people are turning red. And there's that color again! Red. Red: the color of Rose and the primary color of pretty much every outfit Clara wears. Rejects from the Sweetville venom-dipping process (said to save them once the world ends) turn the color if something about them does not jive with the process, and they're thrown out into the waterways. The horrific state is called — wild guess, go for it — The Crimson Horror. Red as a rose and dead as a doornail.
A young married man named Edmond has fallen victim to the Crimson Horror after trying to discover what this creepy condition is all about. The case was brought to Madame Vastra and Co., who quickly realized upon seeing an imprint image (octogram) of the Doctor on the eye of the dead man, that there was far more to this story. Jenny heads up to Sweetville to pal around with the local color and dig up more information by sneaking into the factory. What she uncovered? Giant gramophones blasting a loud, clanking tune. (Music! Again a reference to a music-player.) We never see them again: what are they?
Ms. Gillyflower has a penchant for religious zealotry. She even fancies herself a fan of the poem William Blake wrote that later turned into the Victorian church tune, "Jerusalem."
And did those feet in ancient time.Walk upon Englands mountains green:And was the holy Lamb of God,On Englands pleasant pastures seen!And did the Countenance Divine,Shine forth upon our clouded hills?And was Jerusalem builded here,Among these dark Satanic Mills?Bring me my Bow of burning gold;Bring me my Arrows of desire:Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!Bring me my Chariot of fire!I will not cease from Mental Fight,Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:Till we have built Jerusalem,In England's green &amp; pleasant Land
Interesting that they sang the song, though, isn't it? The episode takes place in 1893, but the music to accompany the poem wasn't written until 1916 (by Sir Hubert Parry, I might add). Not sure if that's a continuity error or something more, but worth noting nonetheless!
Anyway, things continued to unfold in a fun and well-paced manner. Turns out Mrs. Gillyflower is actually a host for the prehistoric parasite, Mr. Sweet (who meets his death at the hand of poor little Ada who had been experimented on by her evil mother). Ada, then Jenny, saved the Doctor — and the Doctor saved Clara. All together they discovered the deadly secret of Sweetville and end up removing the virulent venom from the hidden rocket, where the plan was for it to rain down on humanity, but save the perfects to begin a master race of superior beings. Gosh, people sure do love perfect things more than imperfect, huh? What happened to variety being the spice of life, you guys? What happened?!
But in the end, we are still left with more questions of the same: the Doctor calls Clara "the boss" (like BOSS, the old 70s-era Who villain aka a Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor?), and she seems to enjoy the title. Is this who Clara is? Or is this who they are fighting?
For those that are unaware, BOSS was a supercomputer that appeared in an episode titled "The Green Death" back in the early 70s (third Doctor era) which created a chemical that mutated maggots into super-giant-uber-gross maggots (Mr. Sweet is a parasitic leech, but still! Very similar to a maggot). The BOSS had a megalomaniacal personality and intuitive software that made it "inefficient" (like humans), which enabled it to make the same sort of inuitive leaps that we humans do. Interesting lead-up. It almost feels like a lot of the past stories, companions, and people are being tied together for one super-conspiracy blow-out of a 50th anniversary episode. And the BOSS sure does feel like it could have a lot of potential with Clara, next week's Cybermen return, and — of course — the Daleks. Oh! And maybe the Zygons, too, since we all know I had a fun few weeks there where I was convinced Clara was one of those.
Mention and reference to past companions keeps popping up, episode to episode. Anyone else catch the Tegan Jovanka (companion of the fourth and fifth Doctor) references there when he said "brave heart, Clara" and again when he said "gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport"? It's not the first time in New Who that he's said the old phrase, but with all of these teeny, tiny insinuations you can't help but wonder more and more about the theory that Clara is somehow a product of Bad Wolf and a culimination of past companions rolled into one seemingly normal girl.
The other curious reference to the past that I found most interesting was the moment the Doctor looks up (at seemingly nothing ...or the sky?) and says "Clever clocks." This, naturally, made me to think about "The Girl in the Fireplace" episode back in the David Tennant era. As did the turning organ that later revealed itself to be some sort of alien technology (the fireplace had a similar turn-round aspect). Is Clara connected to Madame Du Pompadour?! Are those creepy clock people involved? Also is that...BESPOKE engineering I see in the console behind the organ?
OK seriously, something is going ON here, you guys. What if Clara is the sum of all parts — think back to "The Girl in the Fireplace" — they were waiting for her brain (she saw the Doctor's name when she was going through his memories, and it wasn't erased, remember). Each companion since Madame (who was around when Rose was around, and Rose was Bad Wolf) leading up to Clara represents an aspect of what makes a "good" companion for the Doctor. We've seen so many references to so many past companions this season. Rose, I think, essentially created the companions (to an extent), before scattering them all across the universe. Every lonely monster needs a companion. After all, this isn't a ghost story, it's a love story! There I go, spouting all sorts of potential (and random) theories again! When I'm wrong, feel free to I-toldja-so me til the ends of the earth. If I'm right, somebody get me a job on the writing staff of this show.
But back to the Doctor's companions and friends: we mustn't forget that this is the first time Jenny, Vastra, and Strax have seen Clara since her Victorian iteration. Obviously this meant they were just as curious as us to know why she's still alive and who she actually is: meaning tonight more than ever, the question was posed directly to the Doctor: who or what is Clara? You still haven't told us, Doctor! "I know who you think she is, but she isn't ...She Can't Be." He whispered to himself. Who can't she be, Doctor? Who?!
Clara also seemed to be a bit of a robot this episode: having very little emotion and far fewer flirty, banter-y stuff (We all know Clara likes "stuff." Not sure about the kinds of stuff, though.) with the Doctor. Why is that? The shift in her personality in certain episodes can't be by accident, right?
Next week looks to be a real banger of an episode, since Clara's wards now know she time travels with her "boyfriend" the Doctor (and they oh-so-conveniently have pictures as proof. Found at school: what are the odds? No seriously...), and are taken to the theme park where the Cybermen return. Clara seems downright warrior-esque in the previews, and the Doctor's face-machinery feels eerily similar to the face tattoos we saw in "A Town Called Mercy." And what the heck do you MEAN they're calling the Doctor the savior of the Cybermen?! Lord, next week's episode cannot come soon enough.
Other Things We Need to Discuss...- I loved the sort of filtered effect placed on the footage of Clara and the Doctor's arrival to Sweetville: the production quality on this show just keeps on improving. - The Northern accents. So good. The Doctor's from the North (of Gallifrey, duh).- The Doctor seems to have wanted Clara to meet Strax, Jenny, and Vastra (hence why he got upset that they didn't end up in London): do you think their knowing or not-knowing of her will reveal something to him?- The photo studio! The color red! The color red — does it help us see the truth? The darkroom has now come up twice this season (also in "Hide"). I think it's funny to note, now that many black-and-white papers are only sensitive to blue light (blue representing the Doctor and the TARDIS, obviously), so that's why a red light is often used: it's the only one that can be used (safely) without exposing the paper. Perhaps this is a metaphor for Clara's existence?- The noise from the gramophones sounded an awful lot like an aggressive whisper: could this have something to do with the new, rumored big baddie from this season, The Whisper Men?- Two more musical references today: the gramophones and the organ — both instruments used to project music to a larger audience. Hmmm!- Thomas Thomas: proof that parents have been hating their children since the beginning.- Pontefract cakes. A seemingly inocuous reference to a popular local candy actually has some interesting connections to the story. It's a licorice sweets (Sweetville!) ...created in (you guessed it!) Yorkshire. The licorice root extract used in them is from ...Australia! Another Tegan reference?- It drives me crazy when the Doctor lies about his ability to accurately land the TARDIS where he wants it to go — since we all know he can with impressive skill — but it's something that's never really been explicitly discussed. When he lands not where he intends, is that the TARDIS doing that, or is he just lying? Time will tell, I suppose! But what do you think?- "I'll see you again, I shouldn't wonder." The Doctor says, knowing full well that he will clearly see them again very soon. He knows what's going on! I just hate that we don't, still. I'm too impatient for this s**t, Moffat! - The signs in the alley way: the circus has come to town (oh and has it ever!), plus the "human wax work" one: interesting coincidence or just the set designers having a bit of fun with the episode's story? - The word "chuffed" is repeated (I only notice this because that word makes me so happy): in "Cold War" Clara says it after rationalizing that she did well with Skaldak, and here, again, the Doctor says it in response to being admitted to Sweetville.
What did you think of "The Crimson Horror"? Excited for next week's episode? Have any nutty theories yourself? Let us know in the comments!
Follow @AliciaLutes on Twitter
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Whoa. Raise your hand if you accurately guessed that Malcolm’s Undertaking plans included completely destroying The Glades altogether? And put your hand down, you liars. Nobody could have seen that coming!
The reveal of Malcolm Merlyn’s mysterious Undertaking on Arrow was a big one, but it was hardly the only big, noteworthy twist that went down in “The Undertaking.” Let’s dive right in, shall we?
Since he hasn’t exactly been rectifying his situation with both Diggle and Tommy, Oliver instead decides to focus on The List and steals a corrupt accountant’s laptop. He wants to give money back to whom it was stolen from. It’s official: he’s a modern day Robin Hood! Shooting arrows, stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. But even though Oliver counted the mission as a win, since Diggle and Oliver still haven’t made up Felicity feels stuck in the middle of her friends. Good thing these are two, easy-going, forgiving guys, right? Oh wait, they’re the two most stubborn men in Starling City!
Back at Queen mansion, Thea decides to break the months of silence and bring up a certain missing father figure from the household. “I know we haven’t talked about Walter in a while [Side note: UH YEAH NO S**T] but I miss him too.” Thea says. It’s good to see the Queen family finally showing some stress and worry about their missing patriarchal figure. It’s only been, what, 12 episodes?
In our first flashback of the night – important to note that this week’s flashbacks are not of the island, but rather the events that led up to Oliver getting stranded on the island – we finally learn Malcolm’s plans for The Undertaking: what it is, why he wants to do it, etc. He wants to completely level The Glades “right down to the bedrock,” all 24 square blocks. He’s convinced the area can’t be saved from the corruption and crime that took his wife away from him. He’s fanatical, and while I hope the rest of the board sees how ridiculous this idea is… I know that since The Undertaking is going down in the present, I’m guessing they’ll hop on board his crazy train. Malcolm wants to frame it as a natural disaster, and Unidac Industries is five years away from a prototype that can create such a disaster. Coincidental timing? I think not.
In the first of many extremely awkward conversations of the night, Laurel confides in Oliver about Tommy breaking up with her. While that alone is enough to make anyone uncomfortable, things are made so much worse when Felicity enters the scene. That whole exchange where Laurel meets Felicity but Felicity already knows so much about Laurel was just gold. God, I want to rewind and rewatch that scene over and over.
The reason Felicity interrupted the heart to heart between Ollie and Laurel was because she found an entry in the accountant’s laptop for $2 million the day that Walter was kidnapped. If they find who the money leads to, they can find Walter! The man in question is the head of an underground casino, and since she’s the only one who could pull it off, Felicity volunteers to go undercover at the casino. She’s already grown so much as a character from when we met her at the beginning of this season, and this choice proves as much. She used to be timid and wary, and was extremely hesitant about joining Team Arrow in the first place, and now she’s convincing Oliver to let her go out in the field, volunteering for dangerous missions. They grow up so fast!
Back to the flashback, we (and Robert) learn even more tragic details of Malcolm’s wife’s death. This was a tough scene, and even though Malcolm is the big bad this season, I couldn’t help but shed a few tears for the poor guy. Apparently the night Malcolm’s wife Rebecca was shot and killed in The Glades, she had called him and he ignored her calls. She left a voicemail begging for help, calling his name, and gasping for air. He literally listened to his wife die over and over later that night via his voicemail. That is just too much. No wonder why the guy wants to destroy a whole community!
Before taking off on the mission, Felicity goes to Diggle to ask for his help and to come back to Team Arrow, but he won’t until Oliver apologizes. Something tells me he’s going to be waiting a long time for that. Don’t hold your breath, Dig! I don’t think Oliver even knows the words “I’m Sorry” even exist…
Taking Oliver’s advice, Laurel goes to talk to Tommy to get some closure or at least some honesty about why he broke up with her so suddenly, but she wasn’t prepared for the latter. Tommy drops the bomb that she belongs with Oliver, and that he’s still in love with her. Colin Donnell really sold this scene. His quiet rage and restrained hurt were so well played.
Out in the field, Felicity gets a final pep talk from Oliver where they discuss the plan one more time. Felicity is going to get caught counting cards in the casino, and so the mob boss, a.k.a. Alonso, a.k.a. their connection to Walter will bring her to his office to get a warning, and Felicity will plant a bug in his computer. I know this is supposed to be super serious, but Felicity is looking goooood in her fancy dress. Oliver, are you paying attention?
Not to be confused with the flashbacks of The Undertaking planning, in the present Malcolm announces to Moira that “The Markhoff” device passed its final beta test. You know what that means: The Undertaking is upon us! And the second awkward conversation of the night finds Malcolm claiming that he sometimes waivers in his convictions but his friendship with Moira is what propels him forward with his plans. You can sure as hell bet that Moira felt disgusted when she heard that. Moira says she wishes Robert could be celebrating with them and Malcolm flat out says, “I’m sorry I had to take him from you.” How is this conversation so civil?!? Seriously, I half expected Moira to pull out a gun and just take down this dude.
Back in the flashback, Robert confides in Moira about Malcolm’s plans to level The Glades without evacuating everyone and she seems shocked Robert would agree to it. Turns out, he’s been keeping secrets from Moira, like the time he refused to bribe a councilman from The Glades and they argued and the guy ended up dying. Robert sees the work he’s doing with Malcolm and The List as penance for the death of the councilman. And twist! Moira actually tried to convince Robert to stop The Undertaking from happening! That’s quite a different tune than what she’s singing in the present.
Felicity gets caught counting cards as planned, plants her bug, but Alonso knows she is working with a partner. Cue Oliver swaggering in all protective of Felicity, taking down the entire security team like it’s no big deal (and that shattered glass in the eyes trick? Had to hurt). But when he corners Alonso, he reveals that when he delivered Walter to whoever hired him he heard gunshots and that meant Walter was killed. I’m sorry, but I didn’t for one second believe this was true. No way Moira would have allowed that. I call shenanigans.
Back in the flashback, it turns out that Moira convinced Robert to stop Malcolm’s plans, and Robert dug some more and found out Malcolm was lying. He was actually planning The Undertaking for a long time, buying up a third of the real estate of The Glades already and only pretended like it was a recent idea. Robert and Frank Chen (RIP both of these guys) decide to conspire behind Malcolm’s back and buy the remaining two thirds quietly, and they need money from Frank’s contacts in China. Hence, why Robert was sailing that way! The pieces, you guys! They’re starting to fit together!
Also in the flashback we learn why Oliver wanted to sabotage his and Laurel’s relationship before he set sail: she was pressuring him to move in with her. That’s why he slept with Sarah!
Back in the present, Oliver overheard Malcolm and Moira discussing that Walter is still alive, and will remain in Malcolm’s custody until The Undertaking is complete. Oliver now has undeniable proof that his mother is in on the evil plans! Oliver is on a mission… and he is pissed. Time to go to Bludhaven (though no Nightwing will be in attendance unfortunately)! To prove just how angry Oliver was, he took out 20 goons singlehandedly without even breaking a sweat! And he found Walter and delivered him home, safe and sound.
Another flashback twist! It turns out that Frank Chen went behind Robert’s back and told Malcolm what he was planning, and he was the one to plant the bomb on the Queen’s Gambit! I don’t feel so bad about Moira framing him for the hit on Malcolm a few episodes back. This dude deserved what he got. Also, pre-island Oliver was such a douche. My god, poor Laurel.
Back at the hospital, the Queens were back together again, one “happy” family. But damn, the look of pure rage on Oliver’s face when Malcolm was trying to figure out if Walter knew it was him behind the kidnapping was absolutely chilling. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, post-island Oliver is an incredible actor, and Stephen Amell is an even better one, portraying so many different sides and incarnations of the same character. I mean, playing a character who is playing a character, as well as playing different versions of that same character but just in different time periods? Impressive.
Laurel also made her way over to the hospital and asks Oliver to talk to Tommy and convince him they don’t belong together. Oliver, clearly done with all the lies and drama, refuses, and drops a bomb on her: he is still in love with her. Boom!
After all the emotional trauma he endured finding out Moira was in cahoots with Malcolm, Oliver swallowed his pride and made his way over to Diggle’s apartment and apologizes to him! Whoa! He needs help figuring out a way to stop Moira and Malcolm from whatever it is they’re planning. Team Arrow is back together, y’all!
Best quotes from "The Undertaking:"
Felicity: Let me guess. Some bad guy is missing his fancy new laptop?
Laurel: This coffee is terrible, Oliver.Oliver: That’s what you get for ordering coffee in a bar.
Diggle: What do you want?Felicity: Is that any way to treat a girl that just walked up six flights of stairs?Diggle: No it’s not. Welcome!
Laurel, to Tommy: Wow. You really look like your father.
Felicity: So just to be clear, the plan is for me to get caught counting cards in an underground casino filled with hardened criminals…Oliver: So you can get a friendly warning from Alonso and plant a bug on his office computer.
Felicity: It feels really good having you inside me. [Pause] And by you I mean your voice. [Pause] And by me I mean my ear. I’m going to stop talking right now.Oliver: That would be my preference.
Alonso: I heard you never miss.Oliver, after shooting an exploding arrow into the bullseye of the dart board behind his head: I don’t. [BOOM]
Laurel: Obviously, we can’t hang out at my house…Oliver: Because your father threatened to taser me the last time I closed the door to your bedroom?
Moira: We’re together again. Everything’s going to be all right. [Cue Oliver’s look of total disgust and betrayal and misery]
Diggle: I guess you do know where I live.Oliver: I’ve always known where you live.
Follow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
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While West Wing fans are still considering staring a Kickstarter for the Jed Bartlet Presidential Library in some hell hole in New Hampshire, the rest of us are celebrating another TV show about the executive branch. Yes, HBO has ordered a third season of Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Emmy farm Veep, which has not only been improving in the ratings over the last few weeks (surely that Game of Thrones lead-in doesn't hurt), but has actually been getting funnier and funnier.
With half of the second season still left to air, the show that you watch on your boyfriend's step-father's HBO Go account on your iPad has been renewed for 10 more episodes that are scheduled to air sometime next year. We're sure even tart mouthed creator Armando Iannucci can't think of any insults today. Actually, he probably can, and can't wait to see what he puts in bumbling Vice President Selina Meyer's mouth next.
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So we’re here. The part of Season 12 of American Idol where we’re no longer paying attention to runs and vocal flourishes, big notes and clarity of tone. We know that Angie Miller, Amber Holcomb, Candice Glover, and Kree Harrison are all powerhouse singers with incredible talent. That’s no longer up for debate. So what the hell do we do now?
Well, we start focusing with incredible intensity on the song choices, the arrangements, the way each singers’ eyes behave while they sing, and of course, their resemblance to such confectionery delights as New York’s famous Black and White cookie. You know, the really important stuff.
The problem is, these ladies are on their own. They’re not being carefully managed by a team whose job it is to make these girls relevant and valuable in mainstream music. These are young girls, picking songs from a list that’s been given to them and they’re making it work. They’ve got assistants in their process, but these assistants, from the band to their stylists, aren’t there to make each person the best performer. They’re like rented softball gear at the rec center: if you use it right, you’ll hit the ball out of the park. If not, you’re swinging around a dingy old bat and putting your hand in a leather flap full of God knows how many forms of bacteria. They are professional tools, but they’re not there to make the right decisions for these ladies.
And now that we’ve got past the point of being able to tell who’s crashing and burning and who’s flying high, the show is getting very detailed, very subtle, and so boring they had to bring Jimmy Iovine onstage so he could get in a fight with Nicki Minaj over some incredible correct comments he made backstage. Who needs a real singing competition when you can have Nicki faux-strangling Jimmy while Randy plays lame dad, joining in with no idea of what’s actually going on? Really. Why would you want to be entertained by the point of the show at this point? Perhaps because there seems to be so little game left in the series that dragging on until May 16 feels about as appealing as being made to watch the same Storage Wars episode 15 times in a row. Yet, here we are. Let’s make the best of it.
For the first round, there may have been a theme, but I couldn’t care less at this point. It was likely something like “Songs That Make Your Ears Listen Hardest” or “Tunes That You Like Hearing on the Radio When You’re Driving and It’s Nighttime” and we’d probably end up with the same lineup.
Amber opened it up with, you guessed it, yet another dated ballad, that she can sing each note to absolute perfection, but we. already. know. that. So when she sings “The Power of Love” by Celine Dion at the top of the stairs with an outfit and hair straight out of Whitney Houston’s I’m Your Baby Tonight playbook while psychedelic henna tattoos swirl on the screens in the background, we’re inclined to think what we’ve been saying all season: incredible voice (now with added personality and confidence), but what exactly about this screams contemporary? Well, nothing unless you’re one of the judges, who apparently have no issue with this becoming an old episode of Star Search. She has grown significantly in the past few weeks, but doesn’t anyone else seem to think it’s a problem that putting a finger on who she is is still proving to be almost impossible?
Candice took a bit of a chance with “Find Your Love” by Drake, and while her crush on the singer/rapper is completely charming, this may not have been a totally sound choice for her. She deconstructs Drizzy’s song and makes it a jazz club version of the original. It works better for her voice and range than the original, but it does come across as a little unremarkable. It’s a fun rendition for a Drake fan, but it’s not something that showcases her talent or her ability to crush her audience’s souls. It’s simply nice. Keith points out that she’s still very much herself, which isn’t really a problem for anyone on this show right now, so thanks, cap’n.
And the mediocrity continues with Kree, who’s also a victim of her own song choice. This week is not the time to pick songs because they were something you listened to as a kid. This is the time to bring out the claws, big guns, best songs to potentially make you more popular and most likely to win. It’s not the time for a last ditch effort or a wild hair. Save that for the Idols tour, or did you all forget you’re contractually obligated to do that? Anyway, Kree sings “It Hurts So Bad” and it showed off her voice, per usual, but felt more like that episode of Dawson’s Creek where Andy and Dawson get drunk and sing the blues on stage. Kree’s playing the part of a blues singer, and unlike James Van Der Beek, she can really sing, but it’s still a performance better served with a third glass of whiskey than as a Top 4 performance on Idol.
Finally, we get a tiny bit of relief in the form of a girl I’ve been rather harsh on: Angie. She reprises her rendition of “Who You Are” by Jessie J, which she sang during the audition rounds, and if we’re going to do a mini half-time report after the episode’s first hour mark, Angie was the one moving the majority of the chains. The song doesn’t overtake her the way last week’s tribute to Boston did. She’s able to be more herself: Her facials are less canned, she’s not singing like Mary Poppins, and she’s not thinking about making cute or attractive faces. She’s just singing the hell out of the song and doing her thing on the piano.
But we need to fill two hours, folks. It’s time for everyone’s favorite Idol moment: duets. (Not.) First up are Kree and Amber with “Rumor Has It,” and while this Adele song is something that either one of them could have performed on her own to sheer perfection (I’m looking wholeheartedly at Amber here, who needs some contemporary flavor more than Kree), together they fumble it. The vocals (as we’ve been saying all night) are wonderful, but it’s the performance that suffers. They were clearly tired and unwilling to put forth the extra effort for this third song that was forced upon them in addition to their two solo performances. Kree was distant and Amber relied on her newfound power stance. There was no fire for a song as incendiary as “Rumor Has It.”
And as convenient as the exhaustion excuse was, it didn’t hold water once Candice and Angie took the stage for their duet of “Stay” by Rihanna. This simple duet is far more engaging even with the first few moments in which Angie looks like a young girl getting the shot to sing with her Idol. By the time they reach the end of the song, they’re so in sync. Their tones wouldn’t normally seem to fit, but emotionally, they’re on the same playing field, adding depth and emotion to their final back and forth, a friendly tete-a-tete of vocal skill. The result is pure emotion, a known form of musical magic. It makes the judges lose their minds and it shows that Angie and Candice are the two most dynamic performers in the set. It’s something Candice needed, because her song choices for the rest of the night weren’t as on point as they needed to be.
Part of that was Candice’s (or the other ladies’) faults. They were given the second category of “One Hit Wonders” (a.k.a. songs people heard so many times they never wanted to hear more from the original artist). Great category, voters.
Amber starts of this stellar category of 20-40 year old songs with “MacArthur Park” (that’s the one about leaving cake out in the rain, or about the dinosaurs running wild in Jurassic Park if you’re more of a Weird Al person). And not only did she pick one of the cheesiest songs possible, she chose to perform the Donna Summers disco version. It’s as if she doesn’t even want to win. That glorious, beautiful voice is going to waste on songs that no modern music fan would want to buy. Still, Randy continues to call her current, hoping that if he keeps saying it, it will become true, when what he should be saying is that she can be current, if she makes the right calls. She possesses that ability, she’s just not exercising it.
Candice makes a similar mistake, though not to the extent that Amber did. She tries “Emotion” by the Bee Gees (and Destiny’s Child if you need a Beyonce connection here). Candice is still able to bring her own genuine brand of singing to the classic song as usual, but she’s fighting something she shouldn’t have to. She’s struggling against the song, not vocally, but with her own personality to make herself the takeaway, and not the fact that everyone remembers that song from the Gibb brothers’ rendition. What’s worse, is that while they were supposed to be judging Candice, the judges veered off into more discussion about Amber and eventually the aforementioned playfight with Jimmy steals every last ounce of Candice’s thunder.
Kree goes a step above Candice and picks a slighter better song: “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” It’s still an old as dirt song, but at least it’s organic-feeling enough to let Kree be bigger than the song. It’s clear that after the judges called her out for needing to loosen up, that she’s making a conscious effort during the song, which detracts a little from what could be a typical Kree smash. But when Nicki points out that something about Kree is dimming, it’s a bit puzzling. While it definitely seems that way, nothing about the way Kree performs has really changed. She’s always been that effortless, laid back, less excitable girl, who can sing absolutely anything with total vocal clarity. Perhaps her light’s not dimming, but she’s been the most consistent all season, so while the other ladies have more triumphant journeys, Kree is static and therefore her luster loses its effect on us, rather than losing its place in her eyes altogether.
Finally, Angie continued to reign supreme over the Top 4. She sang “Cry Me a River” (not the Justin Timberlake one because he’s not a one hit wonder, unless you’re choosing to forget screaming women all over the world and one very sexy Bud Light commercial) and while it’s not typical Angie, it really works. Someone needs to teach her that bobbing your head like a bobble head doll while singing is the new Christina Aguilera emphatically-moving-hand-scale-o-meter (see: annoying), but other than that the performance is on point. She’s elegant, but not too stiff: she’s simply living in the song and making it all her own. I’d say she won the night, but unfortunately my opinion was not unique on that point because all four judges said the same thing.
Angie is making it a lot harder to decide who’s winning this competition. At this point each year, it seems like fans have picked their favorites and their sticking with them. But it’s not that easy with these girls switching pole position each and every week.
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
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The opening moments of “Masquerade,” Revenge’s last episode before going on a monthlong hiatus that will rob it of whatever uptick of viewers it's achieved the past couple weeks hearkened back to the very best thing about Season 2: The Gift of Revenge. You know what I’m talking about. Victoria’s fancy schmancy party invitations, wrapped in boxes with red ribbon, was the kind of thing that would have fit in perfectly with ABC’s holiday season experiment of using the show’s actors to promote products from their sponsors. It was the most DVR-proof form of advertising we’ve seen yet…and aired at a time we still thought Revenge might get back on track. Yeah, so much for that.
It’s a shame, really, because Victoria’s Halloween masquerade party should have been as icily creepy, as full of malice and suspense, as the orgy masquerade in Eyes Wide Shut. But, as with everything on this show lately, it was inert. Even with a six-week jump through time to kickstart Revenge’s sagging plotting.
“Masquerade” opened with Nolan going full John Nash on us. You know what I mean: writing equations on the glass panels of his office window. Six weeks had passed since he last saw Padma getting spirited into the back of a van in the clutches of Trask. Six weeks also since Daniel broke things off with Emily after receiving bullets in the mail, along with a picture of the two of them. And most (or least) importantly, it had been six weeks since Emily had first discovered that Victoria had given birth to a secret son when she was 16. Why she thinks this revelation will do more damage to her than her complicity in terrorism or the many other crimes she’s been involved in is hard to fathom. It’s really not any more shocking than finding out that Charlotte was David Clarke’s child, not Conrad’s. So Emily decided to send back an RSVP in response to Victoria’s masquerade party invitation with the postmark Oct. 21, 1973 and the signature, “From Your Loving Son.” Victoria seemed genuinely unsettled by that, for reasons that would be made only slightly more clear later on in the episode.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Ultimate Victory or Ultimate Defeat?
Victoria was also unsettled by how Emily tried to invite herself to the masquerade ball. “It may be Halloween, but some ghosts are better left outside,” she told Emily about why she hadn’t sent her an invitation. That’s one of the better bitch-isms we’ve gotten from her in quite awhile. So Emily sent her 11 black roses with a card indicating that her son would be wearing the 12th, to spook her even more.
And the only reason Emily didn’t get an invite from Daniel was because he’d broken off their renewed relationship after getting those bullets in the mail that were seemingly meant for the two of them. Guess who sent those? Victoria, of course. When Daniel confronted Trask about the treat, Trask replied, “We don’t threaten in two dimensions, we act in three.” Daniel knew immediately it had to have been his mother who sent those slugs. Guess who just got a re-invite to the masquerade ball!
Jack had helped Conrad close in on his opponent in the governor’s race by 4%. If Joe the Plumber himself had given John McCain that much of a bounce, 2008 might have played out differently. But as much of an electoral whiz as Jack had revealed himself to be, he was still plotting Conrad’s inevitable downfall. First up, he’d sabotage his town hall debate. And by town hall debate, we mean a highly-controlled press conference at the Stowaway. It was the only thing that could shake Conrad’s Clinton-esque cool. I also loved that snarky campaign adviser who said, “And once you’ve tapped your inner Clinton you tap nothing more, am I right, Miss Davenport?”
When the Stowaway campaign event happened, an ordinary joe who had been pre-screened to ask a question, went off script, saying he was “a friend of Amanda Porter’s” and was wondering what Conrad had done to call for an investigation into the jury tampering of David Clarke’s trial. Conrad was flummoxed but immediately pivoted and said that he wanted to reopen the case and call for a posthumous presidential pardon of Clarke if necessary. Not exactly what the Republican candidate’s base wanted to hear.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Return of the Evil Foster Brother
It was time for the masquerade ball to begin. As you could imagine, each character’s carnivalesque mask corresponded to their personality. Nolan’s was like the mask worn by Jim Carrey’s Riddler in Batman Forever—because he’s witty! Ashley had a cat mask. Conrad’s was as florid and decadent as he is. Emily’s dress matched her feathery mask to give a white swan look. And of course Victoria was sporting the black swan look. She had already invited another girl there to lure Daniel, and was more than dismayed to see that her son had invited Emily behind her back. Conrad made it clear to Ashley that she was one cat who didn’t have nine lives—and he’d be jettisoning her as soon as he won the governorship. He did not appreciate that she let that town hall participant ask that David Clarke question, spawning frantic phone calls to his doners to let him know that David Clarke won’t be a first-term priority. Daniel meanwhile handed those two bullets back to Victoria and said she’d have one for each of her two faces. So clever!
The real action, though, was taking place away from the party. Aidan had lured Trask into a trap and forced the Initiative goon at gunpoint to lead him to where they were holding Padma. They got to the warehouse where she was being held, and Padma was there laying on a table, stiff as a board. Considering how stiff Dilshad Vadseria’s acting always is, I didn’t really detect much unusual about this at first. Except that it turns out, she was really dead. The Initiative had killed her and her father that morning. Aidan was too late, once again. So he snapped Trask’s neck in payback. He showed up to the party and gave Nolan the bad news. His beloved was gone, to his grief and our rejoicing.
Nolan totally flipped out and had a full-on meltdown in the middle of the fete. Wearing a mask made it all the more surreal. He said Padma’s death was on him, but also on Emily. That makes him, by our count, the third man to say just that to Emily, after Aidan and Jack. Little did he know that Victoria was having a meltdown of her own, thinking that any dark-haired fortysomething guy there might be her son. She collapsed.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Return of the Evil Foster Brother
Conrad interpreted her collapse to mean, rightly, that she had not terminated her pregnancy after all, but that this other son could pop up Whac-a-Mole style at any time. She denied it, but ended up meeting with a nun to whom she had obviously given up her son for adoption decades ago. The nun said her son was alive and well and had even come to visit her looking for his birth mother years ago. She protected her identity and told the guy nothing. Victoria seemed pleased, then left. Then Emily showed up and told the sister that she was pregnant and had nowhere else to go and needed help. Look who just decided to con a nun to find out dirt on Victoria.
Do any of you have an idea where this is going? And is anyone actually said that Padma died?
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
[Photo Credit: ABC/ Colleen Hayes]
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Oh, the Doctor: When he sets his mind and heart(s) on something, it's impossible to change it. It's about as impossible as it was for Amy Pond to be nice to Rory unless he was in mortal danger. So of course, after we left him with the Clara conundrum this Christmas, we knew we'd come back to a man/Time Lord torturing himself over this seemingly unsolvable riddle. Who, where, and when was this "impossible girl?" He was soon to find out!
But before we get to that, let's chat about the horrifying (for us Internet dweebs) monster of the week: THE INTERNET! The episode began with some poor Average Joe stuck in cyberspace with countless others, all proclaiming that they were lost, and that they didn't know where they were. There was a reason for this — an evil Wi-Fi that was free everywhere and therefore unavoidable for those of us who cannot ever NOT be plugged in, was locking into their brains and stealing their souls — uploading them into the Internet. Their bodies would die, but their brains would live on forever, fueling an evil Internet monster and his henchwoman, a lady in a fancy suit.
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At first I was all, "these people are all stupid and that's the shadiest, most satanic-looking Wi-Fi network ever and why would they click that?" But then I remembered being in Vancouver for a day on the set of a show that isn't on BBC so I won't say it's name, and I had no Wi-Fi for like 13 hours and it was unbearable, and I might have sold my soul to the Interwebz to check Twitter. So I get it. The episode's message — 'YOU ARE TOO TUNED IN AND ARE THEREFORE LOSING YOUR SOUL' — is trite, but this is Doctor Who and it's all about having fun (most of the time), so who cares? "The Bells of Saint John" was fun, so it succeeded. There is still plenty of time for Moffat, Coleman and Smith to break our hears later this series, so let's enjoy a rollicking adventure, yes?
Okay, so on to Clara: Ms. Oswald is, again, a nanny to a couple of brats in modern times, and the poor girl just doesn't know very much about the Internet. So she called a "help line" that connected her right to… the TARDIS! Any guesses on who that mysterious person was who gave her the TARDIS' number? I just like to think everything, ever, is Strax. He's like the Doctor's chubby, angry little guardian angel.
Anyway, the Doctor was living in medieval Cumbria (which I now know is in England, because I Googled it) as a monk for s**ts and giggles, and his monk friends alerted him to the fact that "The Bells of Saint John" were ringing. In medieval Cumbria, that meant that the Doctor was getting a phone call. There was no real reason for the Doctor to be living as the "mad monk" — he spent all of his time "reflecting" on Clara and her "run you clever boy and remember" final words, so I highly suspect that Moffat and co. just put him there for the great comedy that was the Doctor entering Clara's modern world dressed as a monk. "Monks are not cool!"
So, backing up, the Doctor chatted with a frustrated Clara — who was way sweeter than I am when I'm on the phone with Time Warner Cable. When he (with adorable frustration) couldn't help her log on to normal Wi-Fi, she clicked on the one with the mysterious, demonic looking letters that had YOU WILL DIE written all over it. The Doctor then realized that the password to the Wi-Fi she SHOULD have clicked on — RYCBAR123 — stood for "run you clever boy and remember" (do you think the 123 signifies her three different lives?) and he hightailed it back to the future to reunite with his new favorite pet. Unfortunately, the Internet already had her.
But who cares because GOD when these two are together they make magic. Jenna Louise-Coleman is just so clever and pretty and perfect with Smith, and I just about died when he made her say "Doctor Who?" three times. It's too soon for me to be Rose Tyler levels of in love, so I won't say her hair probably smells like strawberries, but I wish she was around next month to come to my birthday party because wouldn't she be the coolest best friend ever? She could bring her boyfriend Robb Stark and the two of us gals would just gab and gab and gab over books and Sci-Fi and general nerd-ery over a glass or five of champagne, while Stark looked handsome and brooded over in the corner. That's what he's good for, right? Matt Smith could come too, but only if he promised to explain last season's mystery to me in detail because I still don't really get it.
Sorry, tangent over. While the Doctor and Clara continued down the path of their extended meet-cute (See: Clara asking why the Doctor pointed to the TARDIS when he referred to his mobile phone, him responding: "Because it's a surprisingly accurate description!"), the mean lady running the evil Wi-Fi (she sort of reminded me of the host from The Weakest Link) sent out a "spoon head" to collect Clara's soul. She slumped to the ground "dead," and AHHH! Not again! Luckily the Doctor — who had just changed back into his modern-day suit and bow tie combo, was able to pull her out of the spoon head's head with his sonic screwdriver. She had not yet been "fully uploaded."
Mean suit lady wasn't happy about this — she had to talk to "the client." The Doctor sent her a signed message saying Clara was under his protection, and apparently, "the client" had been waiting for the Doctor for quite some time. Sigh. Aren't we all? While Clara slept and recovered, he ran around acting adorable — doing all of her chores, taking her messages in painstaking detail, and even inventing the quadricycle! Still, the Wi-Fi folks were locked into both of them, so time was not on their side.
Luckily, the Doctor realized this when Clara made a (MEAN!) joke about Twitt-ah. (Apparently, my fellow Tweet-a-holics, we're nothing but a bunch of lost souls crying for help. Wah.) Old Clara of approximately 3 hours ago didn't know how to use Wi-Fi, let alone the super complicated TWITT-AH. Twitt-ah is for the pros. So he whisked Clara away for her first adventure through time and space — exciting! Huge moment! And they went to…
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… the next morning. For breakfast. Thrilling. But first they got to rescue a crashing plane filled with knocked out Wi-Fi consumers, so. A plus. With the evil Wi-Fi'ers hot on their trail, the pair enjoyed a lovely ride through London on a motorbike, breakfast, and tantalizing slash A BIT FLIRTATIOUS?! conversation. The Doctor for some crazy reason left Clara — with her newly acquired genius computer skills — alone to hack into the evil league of evil, and he was promptly assaulted by a group of "spoon heads" in a coffee shop. We had a major "Central Mystery" moment when Clara came up with her new Wi-Fi password, Oswin — because she's an Oswald and she's winning so, Os-Win! I'd expect many more moments like this as the series goes on…
But anyway. In another instance of clever writing, Clara figured out the evil lair's location because literally EVERYONE who worked there had checked in on Facebook. Haha. It was the Shard, a major building in London that I again had to Google, because obviously I need to travel more. The Doctor's image was made into a spoon head and it nabbed Clara, but since he's the Doctor and he's special, it was no big. He just used his anti-gravity motorbike to ride up to the top of the Shard, which just made me think of how much the special effects budget has increased on this show.
Eventually it was revealed that the version of the Doctor that had taken over the Shard was the spoon head version, so he used his powers of soul-sucking to steal the mean lady in the suit. He then used her control-people-o-meter to convince one of her employees to download everyone back, so, case closed. World saved — again! Except some people's bodies had probably been decomposing for awhile, so they were screwed, right? Meh, who cares. The "Intelligence" that had been controlling all of the "evil" Wi-Fi stealing employees gave them their souls back too, so it was happy endings all around for planet Earth.
And for the Doctor and Clara, who are soon to embark on their first (second? third? fourth?) adventure, though Clara was hesitant because she thought the TARDIS was a giant "snog box." She told the Doctor to come back tomorrow for her answer. Presumably, it will be yes.
So, what did you think of "The Bells of Saint John?" Still loving Clara as the new companion? Let us know in the comments, or on Twitt-ah!
Follow Shaunna on Twitter @HWShaunna
[Photo Credit: BBC Worldwide (2)]
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It isn't until the third episode of BBC America's newest original series, Orphan Black, that one of the characters fully spells out the show's central mystery: "We're clones," she tells her sister of sorts. "We're someone's experiment and they're killing us off." But you'll get hooked on the sci-fi drama, part of the network's new Supernatural Sundays, way sooner than that.
British tough girl Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) witnesses a horrific accident at a train station as she's returning home after almost a year away from her dangerous ex-boyfriend and the daughter she left with her former foster mother in Toronto. (Did you get all that? Good.) A distraught woman leaves all her possessions on the platform and throws herself in the path of an oncoming train. Just before she jumps, Sarah catches a glimpse of the woman's face — it's her own.
Thinking this rich woman's life had to be better than her own, Sarah assumes her identity only to find that Beth, the suicidal Canadian businesswoman, is actually a cop embroiled in both a work scandal and a larger conspiracy involving several women who all look like her.
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So that we don't get these clones confused, there's our main character, Sarah, the British foster kid; Beth, the dead Canadian cop; a soccer mom; a German femme fatale; and many more we've yet to meet. Maslany has the difficult duty of playing all of them and is fantastic in every role. She's particularly affecting, however, as the conflicted Sarah, who is torn between skipping town with her daughter, her foster brother, and $75,000 of Beth's money and staying with the women who look just like her and figuring out where they come from and why, exactly, someone is trying to kill them all.
The show is seriously gritty and realistic (well, for a show about clones), but there's enough humor and an eclectic soundtrack — ranging from M.I.A. to Rammstein — to balance it out. BBC America's second original series (Copper was the first) is a solid, engaging show deserving at least a second look but you'll probably want a second, third, and fourth look after that. Based on the first four installments, these hourlong episodes are no carbon copies. The smartly paced storyline and tight writing will ultimately leave you wanting more.
Orphan Black premieres Saturday, March 30 at 9 PM on BBC America following the Season 7 premiere of Doctor Who.
Follow Jean on Twitter @hijean
[Photo Credit: BBC America]
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The long wait for a new episode of Arrow? Totally worth it — thanks to tonight's explosive, crazy, action-packed installment, "The Huntress Returns." We’ve got six more episodes left of the wildly-successful Season 1, and if you thought the action was going to slow down, you clearly don’t watch enough Arrow.
"It's all going to come to a head," executive producer Andrew Kreisberg promises Hollywood.com. "Everything that you could want to happen and everything you think couldn’t possibly happen is going to happen. We just pitched it to the studio and the network and they’re still trying to pick their jaws up off the floor." As if we weren't already incredibly excited about the last third of Season 1.
In order to prepare for what is sure to be an epic ending to the freshman season, we spoke to the cast and producers about what to expect in the next six episodes. Here's what is on deck for Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), Team Arrow, and all our favorite Starling City residents as we gear up for a shocking season finale:
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Tommy’s In TroubleEver since Tommy (Colin Donnell) learned the truth about both his best friend and his father, he’s struggled with this new knowledge, and that won’t end anytime soon. "He’s not doing so well, honestly. Everything’s been thrown into total turmoil for him," Donnell tells Hollywood.com. "You can see the strain on the relationship between Oliver and Tommy. It puts everything into question for him."
Knowing Oliver’s secret also creates some trouble in paradise for Tommy and Laurel’s relationship, which we began to see in tonight's episode. "It doesn't make his relationship with Laurel any easier, and the fact is it wasn't terribly easy to begin with," Donnell states. "We saw from her side that interacting with the vigilante and keeping it a secret from me already placed this strain on our relationship, and now there's another big secret. They've had such an open, very adult, honest relationship and now there’s a huge secret that has to be kept. And that's not good."
Aside from his relationship with Laurel, Tommy’s friendship with Oliver is also in a very bad place. "Oliver is a killer now which, obviously, that's an issue for Tommy. Part of the strain that is on the relationship is because of what Oliver has become," Donnell explains. "But it's equal parts feeling betrayed as a friend and a brother and a confidante. Oliver was the one person that Tommy always went to for advice. Tommy always thought that Oliver would be there for him, and all of a sudden that’s not the case."
And to find out that not only is your best friend a killer, but also your father? That would certainly throw a wrench into Tommy's newly-mended relationship with father Malcolm (John Barrowman) … or so one would think. "Tommy's pretty good at forgetting that people kill in front of him. The fact that there is a relationship again between Tommy and Malcolm kind of overshadows the fact that he saw his father doing what he did," Donnell says. "He's so consumed by almost losing his father, having him come back to life, and having him come back into his life. It is such a huge, good thing that it sort of overshadows what he saw Malcolm do."
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Malcolm’s Mysterious MentorWe haven’t heard much about Malcolm Merlyn's years in Nanda Parbot — outside of the fact that he left after his wife's murder, learned how to fight from a mysterious mentor, and returned cold and distant towards his son. This sounded suspiciously like Yao Fei's mentorship to Oliver on the island, but when I brought up my hypothesis to executive producer Marc Guggenheim he – very gently but officially – shot it down.
"We made a concrete decision in the first year not to tie the island mythology in with the present day mythology. We felt like that would be a little too coincidental," Guggenheim explains. "It's a good pitch, but no. The person who trained Malcolm, [the executive producers] know who that is, but you haven't met them yet. And you may not meet them for the first two seasons of the show."
While he didn't give away much in terms of spoilers, Guggenheim did reveal if/when we will learn more about the identity of Malcolm's mentor and his years in Nanda Parbot. "It will be an ongoing mystery as to what happened in Nanda Parbot with Malcolm. We want to continue to delve into Malcolm's back story because I think people are interested in it and John Barrowman is a wonderful actor," Guggenheim says. "So assuming Malcolm survives Season one, we'll continue to explore what happened to him during those two years."
RELATED: 'Arrow' Gets a New Island Ally
Dark Days Ahead (and Behind) For DiggleDiggle (David Ramsey) may be the moral center of Team Arrow, but all that is about to change, thanks to the realization that Deadshot, aka the man who killed Diggle’s brother, is still alive. "Diggle is going to get on a blood quest. We haven't really seen Diggle like this before," Ramsey tells Hollywood.com. "Up until now Diggle has been the voice of reason and the moral authority, and he's been leading the hero to have a greater sense of morality in terms of killing. But all of that goes out the door for Diggle when he learns that Deadshot’s alive. He has to hear his own words regurgitated to him, in terms of is he making the right choices, is he making the right decision, et cetera. And there will be collateral damage for that quest."
Along with his darker future, we will also learn some shocking things about Diggle's past. "You're going to see some of his other past come up and Diggle isn't as straight and clean as we all think," Ramsey reveals. "There's a history there and we’re going to see some of it."
More Slade WilsonA huge congratulations is in order for the newly-promoted series regular Manu Bennett as island badass Slade Wilson. Bennett's news joins the already announced series regular promotions of Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoake and Colton Haynes as Roy Harper. Clearly, the Arrow bosses listen to what the fans want, because we just can't get enough of Slade, Felicity, and Roy!
Follow Sydney on Twitter: @SydneyBucksbaum
[Photo Credit: Jack Rowand/The CW]
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Well, This is Awkward: Rejoice, fans of, well, awkward teenager interactions: MTV's Awkward has obtained a Season 3 premiere date. The third go-round of MTV’s teen comedy will premiere Tuesday, April 16 at 10PM. Apparently, [SPOILER] Jenna will go through a major change when a classmate is tragically killed, resulting in a tumultuous junior year. [TVLine]
Ben Actually Gets a Job: Well, unfortunately, Nat Faxon's titular Ben and Kate character is no more. But the actor himself has rebounded, with a currently guest but likely to be regular (if picked up) role on the ABC single-camera comedy Spy. And while he won't be an actual spy, he WILL be dating the ex-wife of one. That sort of counts, right? [TVLine]
RELATED: TV Tidbits: Colton Haynes Bumped Up to 'Arrow' Regular
The Voice Sings Louder: Since reality shows have never heard of too much of a good thing, the spring cycle of The Voice is one again expanding to compete against a Fox rival: this time, American Idol. First, they'll air a one-hour episode on Wednesday, May 8, then two expanded Tuesday episodes, on April 30 and May 7. [Deadline]
Girls Ratings Only So-So: Despite the fact that everyone is talking about it, the Season 2 finale of Girls only drew in 1.1 million viewers across its 3 airings last night. Pretty bleak, but since Season 3 is already underway, Lena has nothing to worry about... yet. [Variety]
Rainn Wilson Heads to CBS: Dwight Schrute has left The Office once and for all, but his real-life counterpart has taken on a role in the new CBS pilot, Backstrom. Wilson will play the title character (as well as nab himself a producer credit), Detective Everett Backstrom: a cantankerous coot who tries and fails to change his self-destructive behavior. [Deadline]
RELATED: TV Tidbits: 'New Girl,' 'The Mindy Project' Get Finale Dates Pushed
Sayonara, Bachelor Pad: The Bachelor and The Bachelorette's down-and-out cousin with a flair for dramatics will not be returning for a fourth season this summer. Producer Mike Fleiss confirmed the news via Twitter. Looks like you'll have to find your self-respect elsewhere, folks (just kidding we all know there's none of that to be found in that drain hole). [EW]
Cinemax Ratings Up: HBO's sister network has been slow to hop on the scripted programming success bandwagon, but is starting to see some pick-up in the last year. Thanks to the well-reviewed Hunted and now the ratings boon for Banshee, which nabbed itself the largest audience a Cinemax original series finale has ever seen. The Alan Ball-created series (he of Six Feet Under fame) had 455,000 viewers during its 10 PM viewing, and 655,000 viewers total for the night. [Deadline]
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[Photo Credit: MTV]
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Synopsis

Kim Novak and Tony Curtis made their TV-movie debuts in this drama of an aging chorus girl who falls for an attentive young delivery boy after deciding that her long-time love affair with a nightclub comic is not headed anywhere.